


The Brightest Star

by NaroMoreau



Category: Mass Effect Trilogy
Genre: Angst, F/M, Pregnancy, Shoker, implied brittle bone disease, implied stillbirth, post reaper war, pregnancy loss, rainbow child
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-08
Updated: 2018-06-08
Packaged: 2019-05-19 15:25:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 430
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14876337
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NaroMoreau/pseuds/NaroMoreau
Summary: This was written for the Mass Effect Relationship Week on Tumblr: Day 4, Struggle. Joker and Shepard struggle with the fear of his condition, when a new baby is on the way.





	The Brightest Star

Muffled sobs tore the quietness of the night. Completely enveloped in darkness, Jane rubbed her eyes trying to adequate them to the inexistent light. Joker’s trembling body announced her that the nightmares were back.

“Jeff…” she whispered, brushing his beard with her hand.

Silent tears escaped from his eyes as sweat beads fell down his forehead; unknown terrors storming his expression as his whimpers became words she could almost understand.

“Jeff!” she said raising her voice, shaking him softly.

His eyes opened abruptly, filled with dread and confusion, while he gasped for air as if he were suffocating.

“Hey...” Jane said, taking him in her arms, feeling him return the embrace with desperation “Hey… it’s all right. It was just a nightmare…”

“No, it wasn’t” he said with a cracked voice while his tears dampened the skin of her shoulder.

“It was-“

“It wasn’t, and it was my fault, as everything bad that has ever happened to you…” he groaned, bitterly.

“Don’t say-“

 “But it is, it is! And again it was you the one who paid the price” he rambled angrily “you and... and…” a knot closed his throat, cutting off his voice while the mere memory stabbed his heart like a flaming knife.

“ _Altair…”_ she whispered.

He cupped her face, pressing his forehead against hers, while their tears fell, and kept falling in an unstoppable stream, soaking the sheets.

Almost afraid and shaking, he placed a hand over her slightly swollen belly, while the other caressed her cheek.

“What if this time… what if it’s the same?” he asked with pleading eyes “I can’t _break_ you again Jane.”

She lifted his head by the chin, wiping off his tears.

“Look at me Jeff” she said with a raspy voice “It was never your fault to begin with… and I can’t lie to you, and I can’t promise you that this time won’t be the same, but what I can swear to you is that no matter what happens, it won’t break me… and it won’t break us.”

“You could have had anyone” he said, voicing a constant thought that still assaulted his mind, always mingled with the fear of losing her “a healthy man with whom these things wouldn’t even had been an issue…”

“Well any man is not you” she said kissing him.  

They lay down, his hand still placed on her stomach, tracing circles on her skin.

“ _Nova”_ he said after a few minutes.

“Hmm?”, she asked almost asleep again.

“Her name will be Nova”, he said softly, grasping straws of hope that kept him afloat.


End file.
